In Darke London, my heroine, Nellie Barchester, is viciously assaulted by a hired thug. She survives the murder attempt, but is left with a mutilated hand. The hero, who is both a doctor and an inventor, constructs a glove of mechanical fingers to replace her missing digits. When I was researching for my book, I came across a fascinating article about a modern-day inventor and the mechanical fingers he invented.

Dan Didrick's device doesn't require batteries. Instead, it has a simple mechanism which, when pressed by the wearer's surviving fingers, triggers the device. Didrick's invention filled a gap in robotic prosthetics. The Xfingers give wearers enough dexterity to play golf, operate a keyboard, and play musical instruments.

You can read the full article here.

And you can see these Xfingers in action in this Youtube video. Pretty cool stuff.